We talked with 2025 Encamper Braeden about his decision to initiate a campaign to enhance ethnic representation in surveys at his school. Braeden is a senior at Windsor High School in Connecticut.
Braeden, how are you doing since the Encampment?
I’m good. Since the Encampment, I’ve been doing a lot of reflection, thinking about “What can you do? You try to do what you can and you reach out to the people who can help you do that.”
Tell us about how you got the idea to make this change at your school.
I was talking to a friend one night and he was curious about the Encampment because I was saying, “This is amazing!” In a back-and-forth conversation, I was telling him how good it was, how fun it was, and what I learned. It grew into talking about some of the people there. One person who inspired me to do some of the changes was Ola, who was in her second year of the Encampment. My friend related to her because they are both of Middle Eastern descent. We got on the topic of Middle Eastern North African (MENA) identity, which is what my petition is about. We did research, looking at some of the past surveys that Windsor High School offered, and we did not see any representation for MENA. For that category, you either had to choose Asian or White. I don’t know how other students felt, but we didn’t like that. We researched ways of making this change and the most direct way was to make a petition. He pushed me to start the petition and he helped me word specific things. We started the petition that night. We went on a couple of local news pages and got it posted.
Is there a certain number of signatures that you need to get the school board’s attention?
We are currently at 49 signatures and at 50, the school board has to read it. At 100, Change.org, which is the site we used to make the petition, is going to reach out to all the people individually as well.
What happens next?
We are going to do more in-school promo; so far, we’ve only posted on small local accounts that have 300–400 followers. We want to get on the TV show that our school plays in every classroom at some time during the day. We will reach out to the TV production teachers to get that done. We’re at the end of the first quarter now, so our attention is on the final tests, but we’ll go back to this.
On the petition, we gave people options: If you didn’t want to sign, you could donate (to help with ads on Change.org) or share with your friends. If you don’t want to do any of the other things, just signing helps. A couple of people didn’t want to donate, but they shared it, and some people didn’t want to share it but they donated. It’s taken a lot of peer-to-peer sharing to get this done.
At 50 signatures, it could be forwarded to our principal, Dr. Parker, and then shared with the board to be considered. They have the option to not consider it, but if they do consider it, then it could be voted on. We have a right-leaning board — three Democratic, four Republican — but it has a decent chance of being voted on, which is not the case in other towns in Connecticut.
Connect the dots for us.
I was thinking about what I could do (to make a difference). Ola inspired me at the Encampment by bringing up the issue of MENA not being used on many applications/forms. She even made a slide show with Annie about the variations in people who are considered “Asian.” Then I connected with my friend, who is in a similar position, and it clicked. My connection to Ola and to my friend produced this desire for change. It’s about the representation of diversity. Even if the percentage of MENA students at my high school is small, they shouldn’t have to choose between White or Asian — they should be represented. The Encampment was eye-opening — that things that exist to show diversity are not used in a lot of places.
Anything you want to say that I haven’t asked about?
The people are important — if you have a good community around you, you can get it done.
If you would like to help support Braeden’s initiative, you can sign his petition here: https://c.org/y4xdJVVkg9
To learn more about Braeden’s summer program, visit our 2025 summer program page here: https://encampmentforcitizenship.org/programs/2025-summer-encampment/
Do you know a young person who is passionate about justice? The 2026 application will be opening soon. We’ll let you know when it does.
Click to DONATE ONLINE or send your gift to The Encampment, P.O. Box 1210, Aptos, CA 95001-1210. Our Federal EIN is 30-0694938. You can help build support for the EFC’s work by sharing this post with your network!
Help us share EFC’s transformative work with the world by sharing your story. Email admin@encampmentforcitizenship.org and we will interview you.
You can also support EFC to build our social media presence. Follow and “like” EFC on:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_encampment/?hl=en
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/theencampment
Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2381986793/
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/the-encampment.bsky.social
PFSP: https://www.instagram.com/pesticidefreesoilproject/?hl=en